


latch onto you

by beautifulglider



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: (blink and you'll miss it but ace Rey is so important to me), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Asexual Rey, Cat BB-8, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 06:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11285169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautifulglider/pseuds/beautifulglider
Summary: Finn’s best friend/roommate accidentally brings home a cat for the weekend, which in turn leads to Finn meeting the man of his dreams.Funny how things work out sometimes.





	latch onto you

**Author's Note:**

> So this one time I was walking in a neighborhood adjacent to my own, and I stopped to pet a friendly cat lying in the middle of the sidewalk. After a few minutes, I said goodbye and tried to continue on my way. The cat followed me for several blocks. Because my mind operates in extremes, my first thought was “oh god what if it follows me all the way home.” And thus, this fic was born.
> 
> Many thanks to A, P, N, and M for the reading and the feedback! And special mention to hachoo, whose amazing cat!BB-8 fic Like Wildfire gave me the inescapable headcanon that Rey drives a Vespa.
> 
> Title from Latch by Disclosure, because that song is my jam.

“So apparently I was followed home,” Rey says.

Finn looks up from his laptop so fast it hurts. She's standing in the open doorway of their apartment, but as far as he can tell, she's alone. She doesn’t appear any more disheveled than usual. Her expression is only mildly bemused. Still, he’s about to ask if she wants help burying the body when he happens to glance downward.

There’s a cat by her heels. An orange-and-white and fluffy one. It strides confidently around her legs and begins to inspect the shoes on the mat by the door.

They don’t own a cat. Never have.

“You were followed home,” Finn repeats, deadpan. The animal is now nose-deep in his favorite pair of sneakers.

Pushing the door shut, Rey drops her bag on the floor with a thud that makes the cat startle. “I found it stuck in Mr. P’s fence, of all places. Teddy the Terror was barking like mad, trying to have a go at it, but he couldn’t get close enough on that tether of his. That dog is _such_ a bully, I swear. Mr. P really shouldn’t let him out unaccompanied. Anyway, I wasn’t about to leave the poor thing there, was I? It never occurred to me that if I set it free it might behave like a little lost duckling.”

Finn sets his laptop on the coffee table so he can get up from the couch. He tries to make his approach as non-threatening as possible, but the cat still hisses at him.

“Hush, you.” Rey nudges the cat with her toe. “He’s a friend.”

The cat gives her a look that Finn might have called skeptical on a human, but this time it lets him get closer. Kneeling, he smooths a hand over its back, then scratches behind its ears. He doesn’t see the collar he was hoping for.

Rey watches him with arms crossed. “I don’t think it’s hurt,” she says. “Or if it is, it’s not serious. I mean, it walked all the way here with no trouble.”

Finn hadn’t even thought of that. He takes a closer look, bracing the cat with one hand as he checks for damage with the other. Aside from an initial attempt to escape, which seems more instinctual than pained, he meets no further resistance.

“Well, I don’t see any injuries,” he says at last. “Nothing visible, anyway. And it didn’t try to claw my face off when I touched it, so that’s a good sign. Probably. You think it’s a stray?”

“Could be. Or else its owner doesn’t care for collars.”

The cat resumes its struggle to get loose, only with more vigor. Finn releases it, standing up and brushing his hands on his pants. This is not how he was planning to spend his Friday night. “Okay, so what do we do with it?”

He and Rey stare at their guest in mutual silence. The cat, seemingly unaware of its audience, starts trying to open the coat-closet door with its face.

“How about the humane society?” Rey suggests. “They can see if it has a microchip, can’t they? Hang on.” She types swiftly into her phone, but the results make her frown. “Well, according to this, they’ve already closed for the night. But they _are_ open weekends—every day at 11, it says. We could go tomorrow morning.”

“ _I_ can’t. I’m working 7 to 1.”

“So we’ll go when you get home.” Rey pauses, biting her lip. “I mean, if that’s all right with you. But I don’t see how I could manage on my own.”

“Yeah, you can’t exactly bring a cat on a Vespa,” Finn agrees. “It’s cool. I’ll drive.”

With a sigh, Rey slumps sideways and drops her head onto Finn’s shoulder. He wraps an arm around her back, resting his cheek against her hair. She’s warm, and smells faintly of gasoline from a day at the shop. They watch the cat finally manage to open the closet, using one paw to maneuver the sliding door on its track. It promptly disappears inside. Soft rustling noises echo from the interior as it explores. Finn hopes there’s nothing in there that won’t stand up to the exploration.

“I’m sorry about this,” Rey says. “I want you to know that if I ever bring an animal home again, I fully intend to consult with you first.”

“And I appreciate you for it, but no apology needed. I mean, is this weird? Hell yes. But will we deal with it? Hopefully also yes.”

Rey’s answering laugh is a soft burst that he feels more than hears. “Well, if we’re not going anywhere at the moment, I think I’d like to eat something now.”

“Sounds good. There’s pad thai in the fridge. I already ate.” Raising his voice, Finn calls jokingly, “How about you, Cat? You hungry?”

To his surprise, the cat pokes its head out of the closet and meows. He and Rey exchange a disconcerted look.

“Guess I’ll take that as a yes,” he mutters.

There’s some plain-cooked chicken in the fridge too, left over from last night’s salad. A quick internet search confirms that this is suitable fare for a cat. While Rey heats up her meal, Finn puts some of the meat on a small dinner plate and sets it on the floor. The cat promptly scampers up and digs in. Once Finn has gotten a bowl of water to go with it, he retrieves his laptop from the living room and joins Rey at the kitchen table.

Twenty minutes, a few Google searches, and a trip out to the recycling bin later, he’s managed to construct a makeshift litter-box out of an old Amazon shipping box, a garbage bag, and some shredded newspaper. It looks just like the pictures on that wiki-how article. Finn’s rather pleased with himself.

“You’d better be litter-trained, you hear me, Cat?” He points a threatening finger in its direction. They’re both sitting on the kitchen floor, so he doesn’t have to point far. The cat, currently occupied with cleaning its face, fails to look sufficiently impressed.

“It’s a girl,” Rey informs him. She’s still sitting at the table, knees pulled in to her chest while she uses Finn’s laptop to conduct some research of her own. “The internet says it’s less common for orange cats to be female, but judging by the pictures, this one’s definitely a girl.”

“Good to know. Doesn’t change the fact that if she pees on anything of mine, I’ll put her outside.”

Rey’s not impressed either. She replies with an unconcerned, “No, you won’t.”

And she’s right, of course. There’s a storm rolling in. The sky was dark and ominous when Finn went out back to dig through the shared recycling.

“I’m gonna stick this at the end of the hallway,” he says, with a gesture at the litter-box. “There’s not really enough space in the bathroom.”

“That’s fine. It’s only for one night, anyway.” Rey yawns hugely, then stretches over the back of her chair. “Ugh, what a day. Are you still up for an episode of Supergirl?”

Finn definitely is. He clambers to his feet, the bones in his ass protesting. That floor is _hard_.  “Only the one, though. I have to wake up early tomorrow.”

The rain arrives about the same time he and Rey move to the couch. A strong wind whips fiercely against the exterior of the building; lightning flashes bright through closed curtains. The cat pads into the living room after them, leaping onto the armchair as easily as if it belonged to her. She flinches at the first distant crash of thunder, but then settles comfortably on the cushion, curling up with her head pillowed on her paws.

She’s still sleeping there when the episode ends. It’s kind of adorable, Finn thinks. He has to get up anyway, to go wash up for bed, so he creeps closer and snaps a picture with his phone.

Rey, who’s sprawled out on the couch in the warm space Finn just vacated, arches her eyebrows at him.

“What?” he asks. “Don’t you want to remember that one time we had a cat for a day? Should be a good story.”

“It certainly is an odd one,” she agrees.

The cat perks up its head for a moment, startled by nothing discernible, and then goes back to sleep.

 ---

Next morning, Finn’s lingering amusement over their feline visitor quickly morphs into alarm. He can’t find the cat anywhere.

He looks in the bathroom, the living room, the kitchen, underneath the furniture, on top of the fridge. Heart racing, he’s about the check the bathroom again—what if she got stuck in the cabinet somehow?—when he notices that the door to Rey’s bedroom is cracked open. Rey  _never_ sleeps with her door open.

The reason for this change is the cat, of course. She’s sleeping at the foot of Rey’s bed, spread out across the length of it with both paws hanging down over the side. She looks impossibly long, and reminds Finn absurdly of a throw blanket. He takes in the sight for a minute longer, breathing deeply to steady himself, and then backs away from Rey’s door on feather-light feet. He’s lucky he didn’t wake them up already, what with his frantic searching; he’ll make an extra effort to be quieter as he gets ready for work.

The microwave clock needs resetting, so Finn suspects the power must have flickered at least once during last night’s storm. Thankfully it’s working just fine now. The overhead light in the bathroom illuminates the hallway just enough that he can easily check the litter-box. It’s pretty obvious upon sight—and smell—that the cat has used it. Steeling himself (because wow, that’s nasty), Finn gathers up the garbage bag, ties the ends, and sets it by the front door to be taken out when he leaves. Then he replaces it with a new bag and fresh newspaper before thoroughly washing his hands. 

As he’s getting dressed, it occurs to him that he probably ought to make sure things are up and running at the diner. Maz texts him back instantly: they _do_ have power, and she still expects him to be there by 7. Reluctant, he writes a note for Rey—to tell her that he changed the litter-box, and that the cat can have the last of the chicken for breakfast—and sticks it to the fridge with a robot-shaped magnet. He really does enjoy his job, for the most part, but today he would much prefer to hang out with his best friend and their unexpected houseguest.

The diner is predictably busy, full of couples and families, groups of students and clusters of friends. The Saturday morning bustle keeps Finn on his toes. Finally, around 10 o’clock, he hangs back in the kitchen to text Rey: _How’s it going over there?_

She replies a few minutes later: _she woke me up at 730 with a cold nose in my ear, the monster. i fed her like you asked_

Finn sends her several frowny emojis, followed up by a thankful hands emoji, and goes to check on tables ten and twelve.

An hour later, Rey texts him again.

_well it looks like we have a cat for another day_

Finn has no idea what to make of this. He takes table seven their pancakes first, and then replies with an eloquent: _?????_

He gets a Facebook link in response. When he clicks on it, he’s taken to the local humane society’s page, where the most recent post is an announcement that the building is currently without power. Staff advises patrons to go to the local animal hospital if it’s an emergency, and to check back tomorrow if it isn’t.

_i called them,_ Rey adds in a second text, _just to make sure we didn’t need an appointment or something. nobody answered, so i went online. and i wouldn’t exactly call this an emergency, so..._

She’s got a point. After he buses tables eight and nine, Finn texts back: _Guess I should stop on my way home and pick up some cat food, then_

_thank you!_ Rey texts him, and then again: _could you also get some more honey nut cheerios?_

Finn sends her a quick thumbs-up emoji before stuffing his phone back in his pocket. He’s just seen Maz on the far side of the kitchen. Given her preternatural awareness of what goes on in her restaurant, she probably already knows he’s been texting on the job. Still, better not give her an excuse to call him out on it.

He arrives home that afternoon to find Rey sitting cross-legged on the living-room carpet, waving a piece of twine for the cat to chase.

“Welcome back,” she says without looking up.

“Thanks.” Finn kicks off his shoes and deposits the grocery bag on the kitchen floor. “Do you have any idea how much cat food there is to choose from? It’s _terrifying_. I stood there for ten minutes, I kid you not.”

“So what did you choose, then?”

“A can of wet food. Says it’s ‘all-natural and grain-free.’ I figured it’s our safest bet, since we don’t know what she normally eats, or if she’s got allergies or anything.”

Rey nods appreciatively. “Good thinking.”

With a weary sigh, Finn sinks onto the couch and props his feet on the coffee table. The cat’s eyes are fixed on the twine, her rump just starting to wiggle. The moment she pounces, Rey pulls the twine out of reach.

“I’ve had an idea,” she says. “What if she lives somewhere nearby? Because I found her not too far from here, right? And if she does, her owner might put up signs or something. ‘Lost Cat,’ you know, that sort of thing. I’d like to have a look around, but I’d rather not leave her here alone. I found her in the bathroom earlier chewing on one of my hair-ties.”

Finn grimaces. “Yeah, that’s not good.”

“Thankfully she hadn’t done too much damage. I moved the rest to the mirror cabinet so she can’t reach them. But _then_ she jumped up on the kitchen counter when my back was turned. Trying to get at those blueberry muffins, from the look of it. Quite the troublemaker we have on our hands.” Rey allows the cat to catch the twine, then tugs it free again.

“And here I thought we were feeding her like a queen,” Finn laments wryly. “But yeah, sure. If you wanna have a look around the neighborhood, I can hold down the fort.”

That’s good enough for Rey. She leaves shortly thereafter, helmet in hand, with instructions to let Finn know if anything turns up. As soon as the door shuts behind her, the cat leaps onto the windowsill and starts sniffing her collection of succulents. Finn watches with apprehension.

“I hope you don’t think you can eat those too,” he warns.

The cat just meows at him, a soft little trill that Finn finds unexpectedly endearing. She takes her sweet time nosing about, prodding a couple of plants—Finn doesn’t know what they are, exactly—with a delicate paw before leaping down onto the far end of the couch, where she promptly begins to lick her own butt.

“Aww, cat, that is _disgusting_ ,” Finn objects.

Not surprisingly, the cat ignores him. Finn gets a book from his bedroom so he can do his level best to ignore her too.

By the time Rey gets back, Finn is in the kitchen working on dinner. The cat is sitting on the kitchen rug, watching with interest, but at the sound of the door, she goes to greet Rey instead. The way she rubs her head against Rey’s shin looks almost affectionate. After a startled pause, Rey crouches down to pet her.

“No signs,” she says, which Finn had already guessed. “I went as far as those condos at Fourth and Abbott, but…”

“Hey, at least you tried.” Finn rinses the quarters of a just-chopped green bell pepper in the sink to get rid of seeds. “I’ve got the day off tomorrow. We can hit up the humane society whenever you want. But more importantly right now, are you gonna help me cook this meal or not?”

Rolling her eyes, Rey goes to wash her hands. Finn puts on some music, and they talk and dance around the kitchen—at least, Finn dances—while they fry fajita steaks and sauté vegetables. Once everything’s ready and Rey is setting the table, Finn gets a bowl of the new wet food ready for the cat. She comes to sniff at it curiously, then looks up at him with big eyes and meows.

“I know, I know, it’s not chicken,” he says. “But it’s chicken- _flavored_. Doesn’t that count for something?”

With an air of resignation, and considerably less gusto than she’d shown at the last meal Finn witnessed, the cat takes a dainty bite. As Rey and Finn watch closely, she follows that up with a second mouthful, and then a third. Finn heaves an over-exaggerated sigh of relief. Rey snorts with laughter.

After they eat, Rey pulls out her game system to play Zelda, and Finn grabs his laptop from his bedroom to dick around on the internet. The cat goes to sleep on the couch beside him, so he’s able to pet her sometimes. Once she mewls sleepily and rolls onto her back to make her stomach more accessible. (It’s cute as hell.) Another time, she’s so deeply asleep that she doesn’t even budge. Finn strokes her almost reverentially until Rey starts swearing at an enemy and the cat startles awake. She goes straight back to sleep, though. After Rey’s beaten the enemy, she takes a picture of them and texts it to Finn.

They hang out like that until it’s a reasonable hour for the humans to go to bed. All things considered, Finn thinks it’s a pretty good way to spend an evening.

\---

As fate would have it, they can’t visit the humane society on Sunday either. While Finn cleans up from making pancakes (and the cat plays with the lid from an empty orange juice bottle), Rey checks their Facebook page and reveals that they’re still out of power.

“This is turning out to be a much bigger commitment than I expected,” Finn says. The cat has just sent her bottle lid shooting across the kitchen like a hockey puck. Shaking his head, he dries his hands on the dish towel and digs it out from under the stove.

“I could see if anyone’s posted about her on Craigslist,” Rey says thoughtfully, and taps away on her phone. She scrolls through the results, then sighs. “Oh well. It was worth a try, I suppose.”

“We’re gonna have to get more cat food,” Finn points out.

Rey offers to pick it up this time, and to have another look around the neighborhood for signs while she’s out. This sounds like a perfectly reasonable plan, so Finn agrees—a decision he soon comes to regret.

When she returns a couple hours later, he’s sitting on the bathroom floor, surrounded by towels, as he attempts to dry the cat with a blow dryer. Rey’s mouth drops open at the sight. Finn turns off the dryer and stares back, and hopes it conveys at least a fraction of the enormity of his defeat.

At last Rey says, “Do I want to know?”

“She tried to climb in the toilet,” Finn replies flatly. Rey’s eyes grow wider. “Her front legs were _soaked_. Luckily I heard a noise and came to check it out, so I caught her before she left the bathroom. But I felt like I should maybe give her a bath, because, you know, _toilet water_. And then her fur’s so thick, the towels didn’t seem to get her dry enough. She just kept shivering, so I thought, I dunno.” He gestures helplessly at the blow dryer at his feet.

Rey continues to stare at him. Her lip twitches. “You know, I can’t help feeling there’s a joke in here somewhere about not leaving the toilet seat up.”

Finn’s snarky reply gets lost in the cat’s sudden, desperate bid for freedom. It takes a shocking amount of effort to keep her from clawing his arms any more than she already has. Once he’s got the situation (relatively) under control again, he says, “Look, could you maybe just give me a hand with this? Because believe it or not, it’s really hard to blow-dry a cat who doesn’t want to be blow-dried.”

Rey sits down to help, but not before taking a picture of Finn and his nest of towels first. The process goes much more smoothly with two people. Soon the cat is fluffy and mostly dry again, and licking herself in a corner of the living room. Rey says she can hang around the apartment if Finn wants to get out for a bit, which he _absolutely_ does. He heads over to the gym for a long workout, then picks up sandwiches on his way home.

“So there’s this problem that’s occurred to me,” he announces when he walks in the door. “And that is that I have work tomorrow, and since it’s Monday I’m assuming you do too, and that means Cat will have to be here alone until one of us gets back.”

“That… yes, that could be a problem,” Rey concedes. She’s in the living room playing with the cat again. She appears to have fashioned some kind of toy out of an empty toilet paper roll—except not _technically_ empty, because as the cat chases it around the carpet, Finn can hear something bouncing around inside.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“Oh, I was looking up homemade cat toys this morning. I picked up the treats along with the cat food. Basically, you put a treat inside a toilet roll, and cut a small hole in it, and the cat has to figure out how to get the treat. She’s a clever one, our girl. It took her almost ten minutes to work it out at first, but she got the second one in less than half that time.”

“You’re gonna spoil her appetite,” Finn objects out of habit.

“I don’t believe in that nonsense.”

And it’s true; as long as Finn’s known her, Rey has always been of the opinion that there’s no such thing as too much food.

It doesn’t take long for the cat to successfully free her treat. Finn joins Rey in a dutiful round of applause, and then Rey opens up one end of the roll to insert the next treat. After a brief resistance effort (because he’d really meant to stay mad at the cat for longer than this), Finn gives in and records a video with his phone.

But soon the humans call an end to playtime in favor of dinnertime. The cat jumps onto the couch and starts to doze.

“So what do we do about tomorrow?” Finn asks again, as Rey’s putting the bag of treats on the bookshelf. “I work until 3, and I really don’t wanna call in.”

Rey hums thoughtfully. “Well, I shouldn’t take the whole day off if I don’t absolutely have to, but I could text Han and ask to take a half day, and just work the afternoon. If I explained the situation, I think he’d be fine with it. At least that way she’d have fewer hours on her own.”

“Yeah, okay. Text him.” Finn glances over at the cat, who is now a deceptively innocent loaf blinking sleepily up at them. “Maybe we should look up how to cat-proof a house too.”

Rey’s boss gets back to her while they’re eating, and gives her the okay to come in at 12:30 instead of 8am. They celebrate by watching a few more episodes of Supergirl. They’re nearly done with the first season now; Finn hopes they’ll have time to finish it later this week.

Once the television has been switched off for the night, Rey lets Finn take the bathroom first. Teeth brushed, face washed, bladder empty, he returns to his room only to find his bed already occupied.

The cat is lying right up against his pillow, one leg sticking straight up in the air as she attempts to clean the other. She stops mid-lick when she hears him come in. For a long moment, they just stare at each other.

It’s wildly awkward.

“Excuse you,” Finn says. “That’s where I sleep.”

She doesn’t move an inch. Not sure what else to do, he crosses the room and acts like he’s about to climb into bed. Only once she’s in imminent danger of being sat on does she finally relocate to the foot of the mattress. There she tucks her front paws neatly beneath her and looks up at him, expectant, almost like she’s waiting for him to join her.

What must her real home be like, Finn wonders. He’s pretty convinced by now that she’s not a stray, but is she a family pet? Are there children she likes to play with? Or does she live with just one human? Maybe a student who appreciates the company during study sessions, or a granny who has to carefully guard her knitting so it doesn’t get chewed to bits. Are there other cats she shares a space with, or is it just her? The possibilities are endless.

But she’s still giving him that look that says he’s not getting into bed fast enough, so he says, “All right, all right, I’m coming,” and grabs the book from his nightstand.

He hasn’t been reading for long before the cat stands, stretches, and then—incredibly, unbelievably—lays down _on his feet_.

Finn holds himself as still as possible. Her small body is warm through the blankets, and he can just feel the faint rumbling of her purr. Minutes pass, but she doesn’t budge. Finn’s pretty sure she’s actually gone to sleep. In that time, he thinks he can understand why cat owners might be willing to put up with so much. This feels like the highest honor he’s ever received in his life.

At last, ever so slowly, he reaches for his phone and sends a text to Rey:

_Come quick be quiet_

Her head appears in the doorway ten seconds later.

“What is it?” she demands in a nervous whisper. Then she catches sight of the cat, and her eyes go soft.

“Will you take a picture of us?” Finn whispers back.

With a huff of laughter, Rey accepts the phone from his outstretched hand.

\---

In retrospect, Finn probably shouldn’t have been surprised when the cat woke him up next morning, well before his alarm, by climbing on top of his head.

(But she’s so happy to see her breakfast that he can’t feel too resentful about it.)

The diner keeps him suitably busy, though without the overload of a weekend shift. Rey texts him at 11:03 to say that the humane society is finally open again, but she has Aikido tonight, so would Finn be willing to take the cat there when he gets home? Finn imagines the drive across town with an animal roaming free in his car, and proposes that maybe they should keep her for an extra day instead. He gets a couple laughing emojis in reply.

Rey texts again at 12:16 to inform him that she just left for work, and that she closed all the bedroom doors _and_ the toilet seat. Last night she and Finn had hidden all their charger cords, moved all the food from the kitchen counters to the insides of cabinets, and relocated Rey’s succulents from the living-room windowsill to her bedroom. Finn crosses his fingers and prays it’s enough.

Rey texts again at 12:32 to tell him to abandon the humane society plans: She passed the relevant lost cat sign on her way to the shop.

Finn must make some kind of noise when he reads this, because Sid gives him a weird look before taking a tray of burgers and fries to table three.

_So what now??_ Finn texts back. He’s barely taken his finger off the send button when Rey’s next message comes through.

_things are a little crazy here, so i'll call the number when i get off for the night. i'll keep you posted_

Finn spends the rest of his shift in a state of highly inconvenient distraction.

When he finally walks through his front door, anxious to see what sort of destruction the cat may have wrought in her solitude, she’s… nowhere in sight. That’s kind of alarming. With a strong sense of déjà vu, Finn swiftly searches the whole apartment. His déjà vu only increases when he spies Rey’s open bedroom door.

This baffles him at first—after all, he had been under the distinct impression that door handles were beyond a cat’s capabilities—until he remembers the tiny detail that both he and Rey forgot: You have to pull Rey’s door extra hard to make it latch shut. If you don’t, all it takes to open again is a firm shove. This had never been a problem with just the two of them, respecting each other’s privacy like the mature adults they usually are. Cats probably don’t even have a concept of privacy, Finn thinks.

Fortunately, the damage to the bedroom is minor and easily repaired. The ace pride flag has been knocked off Rey’s desk, along with some loose papers. The trash can is lying on its side, but they emptied the garbage last night, so they lucked out there. Rey’s bonsais have been disturbed as well, if the crooked pots and the specks of dirt on the carpet are any indication.

Finn has just realized that he still doesn’t see the cat when her head pops out from under Rey’s bed. She meows at him. It feels almost like she’s saying hello, but maybe with an added dose of, “Who, me?”

“Cat, please,” Finn sighs, and goes in search of the canister vac.

The cat, as it turns out, is not a fan of vacuums. She hides under the couch until Finn puts it away, and looks so shaken by the whole experience that Finn gives her a couple treats in apology. (And one more as a reward. The worst she did to the rest of the apartment was spill some water from her bowl, so Finn figures she deserves it.)

His cellphone rings shortly after 5. Caller ID says it’s Rey, so he picks up immediately.

“What’s up?”

“Cat’s human is called Poe,” Rey says, straight to the point. “I gave him our address, and he’s coming by to pick her up around 7. Do you mind seeing her off on your own? It’s just, the sooner, the better, I thought. He sounded a bit frantic.”

“Well, his pet’s been missing for what? Three, four days now? Can’t say I blame him. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of things.”

Her laugh is a soft gust of air, barely audible over the phone. “Yeah, all right. Thanks. Just… Give her one last scritch behind the ears for me, will you?”

“Of course. Knock somebody on their ass for me tonight, will you?”

Rey rolls her eyes (Finn doesn’t have to be looking at her to be sure of that) before ending the call. Presumably she’s going to stop somewhere for dinner, like she usually does on Monday nights, and then head over to the dojo. Following his own routine, Finn had put on sweatpants when he changed out of his work clothes, but he probably ought to look more presentable for company. He goes to change again.

The cat follows him to his room and sits on his bed while he puts on the first pair of jeans he can find. With a burst of affection, he ruffles her fur and says aloud, “You know what, Cat? You’re not too bad.” She nips at his fingers, then jumps down from the bed to curl up on his abandoned sweatpants. He snaps a photo and sends it to Rey.

\---

It’s not even ten to seven when a firm knock echoes round the apartment. Finn has already fed himself and the cat. He’s been reading without much enthusiasm for some time, just waiting for her owner to arrive. Now he marks his page and goes to answer the door.

The dark-haired man standing on their welcome mat is unexpectedly, breathtakingly gorgeous.

“Hi!” he says, while Finn’s brain stutters to a halt. “I hope I’m in the right place. I’m, uh, here about my cat? I spoke to Rey on the phone a couple hours ago.”

It’s a good thing Finn has some deeply ingrained manners to fall back on. Overriding the urge to freeze or flee, he beckons the man inside.

“Yeah, yeah, come on in. Rey’s not here right now, but she asked me to handle the Great Feline Transfer of 2017 in her stead.” The man laughs warmly at that, which of course sends Finn’s heart into overdrive. He really should have known better than to attempt humor. “The name’s Finn,” he adds, because introductions, yeah, that’s a thing people do.

“I’m Poe, Poe Dameron. Good to meet you, Finn.” And he holds out his hand to shake. Finn sternly orders the butterflies in his stomach to behave themselves. “So where is the little rascal?” Poe asks. He’s brought a carrier with him, which he sets on the floor by his feet.

“Oh, she’s right—” Finn glances around the living room. It is (once again) ominously empty. “Huh. She was just here. Hang on a sec.” He strides down the hall and pokes his head into both bedrooms in turn. “Aha! Here she is, and she looks dangerously close to eating one of Rey’s bonsais. Let me just grab her…”

The relief on Poe face when he lays eyes on his cat is stark and endearing. Reaching out, he takes her from Finn and cradles her in his arms. She strikes up a steady purr, the loudest Finn’s ever heard from her. Poe leans down to touch his nose to hers.

“Hey, buddy!” he croons. “It’s good to see you. Did you miss me? Probably not, since you had such interesting new people to make friends with. Really, though,” he adds, looking up at Finn. “I can’t thank you two enough for taking care of her. If your girlfriend hadn’t brought her home, I don’t know what—”

Finn cuts him off quickly. “Oh no. _Not_ my girlfriend. Roommate, best friend, definitely not girlfriend. That, that would be weird.” And now he’s rambling. Well done, Finn. “Anyway, yeah, good thing about your cat. What’s her name, by the way?”

Poe’s expression turns oddly sheepish. “I, uh. I didn’t name her myself. The friends who gave her to me did that. But we call her BB-8.”

Finn blinks. “BB-8?”

“Yeah, it’s meant to sound like a robot, I guess. They were teasing me. I work with planes—fly ’em, fix ’em, you know—and I _may_ have had a tendency to work too much in the past. So the running joke with them was that I should just get a robot to keep me company on the job. But then I moved here about a year ago, and they decided a kitten would be a good going-away present. And that’s probably more than you needed to know.” Finn privately disagrees; he’d like to know whatever Poe is willing to tell him. “Has she been good, at least? Not too much trouble, I hope?”

“Nah, she's been fine. I mean, sure, we’ve had our fair share of excitement, but we’ve done all right, I think. Did Rey tell you how she found her?” Poe shakes his head. “She saved her. I mean, I wasn’t actually there to see it, but apparently Cat got herself stuck in a fence somehow. There’s this house a few blocks down, guy owns a real mean dog—”

Poe’s eyes have gone wide. “Not the yellow house on Jackson? With the dog who tries to attack anything that moves?”

“Yeah, how’d you—?”

“I live on Davis Avenue, not too far from there. But she got stuck in the fence, seriously? Wow. I owe you guys more than I realized.” Poe strokes his cat in a way that plainly says he’s grateful for the opportunity to do so.

“Rey would say you don’t owe us anything,” Finn assures him, “and I’d have to agree with her. It’s lucky you’re close by, though.” He explains about the humane society, and the prolonged power outage, and the searches for lost cat signs.

“Yeah, sorry it took me so long to get those up,” Poe says. “I left town Friday morning. My friend Jess was supposed to feed BB-8 for me, and she thought it was odd that BB never came out to say hello. She didn’t realize BB wasn’t even in the house until yesterday morning. I got home in the evening, and we were up half the night making signs.”

“Do you have any idea how she got out in the first place?”

Pulling a face, Poe nods. “I left the kitchen window open. Didn’t notice in the rush to get out the door, you know? And I had no idea there was a tear in the screen, but it looks like BB pushed and it just gave out. I keep telling Jess it’s not her fault, but…” His shrug jostles the cat, who’s starting to look a bit longingly at the floor. “Hey, if she insists on buying me beer for the foreseeable future, who am I to complain, right?”

Finn laughs. “At least it turned out all right. I mean, she was just chillin’ at our place. No harm done. And we had fun, too. I’ve got so many pictures on my phone now—” Which didn’t sound creepy in his head but kind of does out loud, so he adds, “I can show you, if you want?”

To his relief, Poe looks delighted. “Absolutely!”

He lets BB-8 down again, and Finn leads the way to the couch, then unlocks his phone and hands it over. While Poe looks at the weekend’s worth of photos, Finn tells the story behind each one—as well as some stories he didn’t get a chance to document. Poe laughs hardest at the toilet incident, and the image of a disgruntled Finn holding an equally disgruntled cat amidst a mountain of bath towels. Finn has to admit it _is_ pretty funny, even if it does come at his expense.

Soon Poe says, “So what do you do, when you’re not taking care of the cat your roommate rescued off the street?”

Reluctant to say only that he works at a diner (because people have judged him for that in the past), Finn shares his whole educational history. He explains how he went to college to study business at first, even getting an internship at a prominent multinational corporation, before changing his mind and dropping out of school his senior year.

“It was just, well. My adoptive parents always wanted me to be a businessman—like my father before me, you know. But the more I learned, the more it seemed like in practice it was just about lining your pockets, not about making people’s lives better. I just couldn’t do that. So now I’m working at Maz’s place, trying to figure out what to do next.”

“Do you have any ideas?” Poe asks with such genuine interest that Finn can’t help smiling.

“Well, I’ve been thinking… maybe something where I get to cook or bake? I dunno. I mean, I do a lot of that already, just for fun. And besides, good food makes people happy, right?” Poe laughs again. Finn’s getting unreasonably attached to the sound. “Anyway, enough about me. Didn’t you say you’re a pilot?”

Poe enthusiastically matches Finn in the overshare department, which is _great_. He tells Finn how he used to work for the military before he got out and took a position as a medical emergency pilot instead. He tells Finn all about the details of his new job when Finn asks. He tells Finn that he loves what he does because he gets to have a bit of adventure in his life and help people at the same time.

Finn can’t remember the last time he fell this hard, this quick.

They’re talking about their favorite places in the city when Finn’s phone buzzes. Poe must have forgotten he was holding it, because he blinks in surprise before holding it out to Finn with a playful, “It’s for you, I think.”

_did poe ever show up?_ Rey wants to know. _he didn’t turn out to be a serial killer and leave your dismembered body in the bathtub, did he? because i was sort of expecting to hear from you and i’m getting a bit nervous_

Snorting under his breath, Finn checks the time. “Oh wow, it’s already 8:15. That was Rey. She must be on her way home.”

With a sigh, Poe gets to his feet, ruffling his hair with one hand. Finn thinks there’s reluctance in his movements, but then again, he might be projecting.

“I’d better get going,” Poe says. “I mean, you’ve already hosted my cat for several days. You don’t need _me_ overstaying my welcome.”

“Not overstaying,” Finn objects. “Having a conversation, which was definitely not unwelcome.”

Poe’s smile is lovely and unfair. “Glad to hear it. Now, speaking of my cat, she seems to have vanished again…”

They find her in the kitchen playing with her juice-bottle lid. Finn catches sight of the water bowl on the floor and thinks he ought to tell Poe what they fed her, just to be on the safe side. They spend another few minutes on that subject, and Finn gives Poe the extra cat treats too, since he and Rey don’t exactly have a use for them. Finally they make their way back to the front hall.

“So,” Poe says as he’s loading BB-8 into her carrier. “How would you feel about sending me those pictures you took of BB? You could text ’em to me, if you don’t mind.”

Of course Finn doesn’t mind, and suddenly Poe is programming his number into Finn’s phone with instructions to text him anytime. Finn tells himself firmly that Poe doesn’t mean that the way it sounds. But then Poe is out the door with another winning smile and a soft, “See you later, Finn,” and it doesn’t matter how Poe means it because Finn is a little overwhelmed anyway.

Rey gets home not three minutes later.

“Oh good, you’re not dead,” she says dryly.

“That’s debatable,” Finn retorts from where he’s lying face-down on the couch. She just laughs.

“Yes, I ran into Poe as I was coming up the stairs. I can’t believe he stayed for an _hour and a half_. He must have _really_ liked you to stay for so… Wait, what’s that?”

Finn pushes himself up to see what she means. She’s gesturing to a jacket draped over the back of the couch—Poe’s brown leather jacket, Finn realizes, which he took off just before sitting down and clearly forgot to put on again before leaving.

“Do you want to tell him?” Rey asks with a smirk. “I can give you his number.”

“Thanks,” Finn says casually, “but he already did that himself.”

(The look on Rey’s face is totally worth it, even if he has to correct her misunderstanding shortly thereafter.)

\---

Finn’s lying in bed an hour later when he finally texts Poe the photos of BB-8. He prefaces the deluge with a warning: _Hey, this is Finn! I’m about to send you a whole ton of pictures of your cat, if now’s a good time?_

Poe texts him back immediately, three messages in quick succession:

_Hi Finn!_

_Go for it_

_[smiling emoji]_

So Finn does. Once he’s sent the last photo, he follows it up with one more message.

_That’s all of them. Also, you left your jacket on my couch. Do you want to stop by and pick it up? Or I could bring it to you somewhere, whatever’s easiest_

Since staring at his phone and waiting for a reply feels somewhat desperate, he goes to the bathroom to brush his teeth. By the time he comes back, he’s got several unread messages.

_Thanks for the pics! They’re great!_

_Sorry about the jacket though_

_I can come get it, no problem. I work late tomorrow, but how about Wednesday night?_

Grinning to himself, Finn sends back a confirmation. Sure, Poe probably doesn’t want to date him, but maybe they can be friends. _Hopefully_ they can be friends. After the time they spent together tonight, Finn thinks he’d be plenty happy with that.

\---

Tuesday feels unusually quiet without BB-8 under foot. It’s strange to think Finn had gotten used to her after only a few days, but it’s true.

“I kinda miss the little furball,” he admits to Rey. They’re cooking dinner together, chopping vegetables to be roasted.

“Me too,” she says simply. “Guess you’d better get to work charming that owner of hers. Give us an excuse to visit.”

Finn throws a carrot top at her. Because he’s always had good aim, it bounces lightly off her forehead just like he intended. But she sticks her tongue out and throws it right back, and then he has to dig it out from inside his shirt, so he’s not sure who the real winner is here.

\---

Wednesday, in turn, passes much too slowly for Finn’s liking. He works a morning shift at the diner, then spends the afternoon baking snickerdoodles and blasting Janelle Monae through his shitty laptop speakers. When Rey gets home, she takes one look at him, snorts with laughter, and goes into the living room to call for Chinese.

They’ve just finished eating when Poe texts him.

_I’m about to head over, that all right?_

He shows up fifteen minutes later, wearing a different leather jacket this time, with his hair tousled and a motorcycle helmet tucked underneath one arm. Finn had heard the bike drive up, but hadn’t thought to connect it to Poe. Now he resists the urge to drop his head into his hands, because _of course_ Poe drives a motorcycle. Just when he thought this guy couldn’t get any more attractive.

“Hey, buddy, how ya doing?” Poe says, giving Finn one of those smiles that lights up his eyes and makes Finn’s heart do acrobatics.

“Hi,” Finn says back, a little helplessly.

“Hello again,” Rey calls from the armchair in the living room. “How’s the cat?”

“Oh, she’s good.” Poe steps inside when Finn beckons. “I think she misses you guys, though. She chewed up my shoelaces yesterday, and I’m pretty sure she only does that when she’s mad about something.”

Rey’s nose scrunches up in sympathy. “Ugh, that’s awful. What a menace.” But her expression is fond as she gets up from her chair. “Well, Finn’s got your jacket, and I’ve got some bonsais that are _seriously_ in need of trimming, so I’ll see you boys later.”

And with that, she vanishes into her bedroom. Subtlety has never been Rey’s strong suit. Finn tries not to wince.

“Yeah, uh, jacket’s right over here,” he says, and hurriedly retrieves it from the hall closet where he hung it on Monday for safe-keeping. When he turns around, Poe’s watching him with a thoughtful sort of look. Finn holds out the jacket. Poe accepts it. In the transfer, their fingers brush.

“Thanks,” Poe says warmly, and then, “I’ll admit, it’s nice to have a reason to see you again. I had fun talking the other night.”

“Yeah, I, uh, me too,” Finn says, and wonders when exactly his eloquence went out the window.

Poe’s fingers tighten on the jacket, twisting the worn leather in his hands. All at once, he seems to reach a decision. “Hey, so I was thinking about going to that coffee shop—you know, the one that’s, like, ten minutes from here. If you’re not busy, do you maybe wanna go with me?”

Finn has no idea what’s supposed to be happening, but hell if he’s gonna let that stop him.

“I’d love to,” he says, and slips into his sneakers before Poe can change his mind.

\---

It’s both a relief and a delight that, as they walk, they fall into the same easy sort of conversation they’d had a few nights before. They start off on the subject of Poe’s motorcycle when they pass it by, which leads to Rey’s Vespa, which leads to Rey’s bonsais and other assorted flora, which leads to Finn’s baking.

At the café, they order black coffee for Poe and a latte for Finn (who will probably regret the caffeine this late in the day but can’t quite bring himself to care). They take their drinks to a table outside, since all the indoor ones are occupied. There they continue to talk. Finn tells some stories about Rey, about how the two of them met and about various shenanigans that have occurred over the course of their friendship. Poe, in turn, tells stories about his old friends Karé and Iolo, who are the ones responsible for his owning a cat, and about his new friends Jess and Snap. They talk about what Finn’s reading right now; about Poe’s appreciation for coffee; about their favorite movies; about places they’ve been and places they’d like to go.

All too soon, the sun starts to set and the air picks up a chill. Finn’s kicking himself for not thinking to grab a sweater before they left. Poe notices him shiver, just the once, and immediately insists on giving him the jacket he came to get back.

“It suits you,” Poe says approvingly when Finn slips the leather over his shoulders. The warmth Finn feels after that is only partially thanks to the added layer of clothing.

They keep up a steady flow of conversation until the fading daylight makes the streetlamps come on. Then they walk leisurely back to Finn’s apartment. As they approach the building, Finn steels himself to ask the question that’s been on his mind for the better part of the evening. There’s a good chance it might be all in his head, but he really thinks he’s picking up hints, and he has to know—

“Okay, look,” he blurts out at last. “I’m just gonna ask, and if I’m wrong, I’m sorry, but… Is this a date?”

Poe bites his lip, which is incredibly distracting. “I’d like it to be,” he confesses. “But only if that’s okay with you.”

“Oh, that’s _definitely_ okay with me,” Finn assures him.

“Yeah?” Poe looks a little dazed, a lot happy, and Finn’s a fan. They walk a few more steps before he says, “So… does that mean we can do this again?”

“Yeah, I think I’d be cool with that,” Finn says, as casual as he can manage. His heart sort of feels like it’s trying to expand beyond his ribcage. He thinks it’s a miracle he can speak at all.

They’ve reached his front step now, so he returns Poe’s jacket with his thanks, and they both say goodnight. Poe waits until Finn’s inside the building to leave, but Finn lingers in the atrium to watch Poe’s taillights vanish into the darkness. Those few minutes feel necessary in order to contemplate the improbable fact that he likes Poe and that Poe seems to like him back (because wow, that’s an amazing thought). But then again, he could probably contemplate just as well at home as in a drafty stairwell, and Rey is no doubt awaiting his return. Gleefully, he bounces upstairs to the warmth of their apartment to meet her.

\---

Half an hour later, Poe texts him to ask if he’s free this weekend.

Finn doesn’t stop grinning for the rest of the night.

\---

“God _damn_ it! What the hell _is_ this shit?”

Finn looks up from the pie he’s crafting to exchange an amused look with Poe.

“Sounds like Rey wins again,” Poe says. They’re at his place for the day, and he’s sitting at the kitchen table, breaking pieces off what’s left of the chocolate bar Finn melted for the chocolate cream filling.

“Are you surprised?” Finn asks.

Poe shakes his head. “Not at all. But I suspect that six losses in a row might be the last straw for Karé.”

Indeed, the woman in question appears in the kitchen doorway not two minutes later. “I am never playing Mario Kart again,” she declares, and snags a half-square of chocolate from between Poe’s fingers.

“You say that," Poe says, "and yet we both know you’re going to play it obsessively 'til you master it.”

Karé just rolls her eyes. Perching on the edge of the table, she idly begins to twist some of her countless small braids into a larger one. “But seriously. I can fly freaking high-speed military planes, but I can’t win one round of a racing game centered on a tiny Italian plumber. I repeat, what the hell.”

“I hope you’re aware those are two very different things,” Rey remarks as she joins them. She crosses the room to peer over Finn’s shoulder at the pie, inhaling deeply. “God, that smells good. How soon can we eat it?”

“Not until everyone’s here and we’ve had dinner first,” Finn replies. “Besides, it has to chill for a few hours, and then I have to make the whipped cream to go on top.”

“You’re _making_ whipped cream?” Karé gapes. “Poe, your boyfriend is amazing.”

“Yeah, I think so too.” Poe’s smile is sappy. He stops to kiss Finn on his way to throw out the empty chocolate wrapper, and Finn can taste the chocolate on his lips, and wow, he’s so head-over-heels for this guy. They’ve been dating for nearly four months now, and he still can’t believe his good luck.

“Have we decided what we’re getting for dinner yet?” Poe asks the women, once he and Finn separate. “Because I gotta say, my vote’s for pizza this time.”

As Rey and Karé discuss the merits of their various take-out options, Finn moves his pie to the fridge so it can start the chilling process. Chocolate cream was Jess’s request, and given that her birthday was just a few days ago, Finn was more than happy to oblige. She and Snap are coming over later, since Karé’s in town for the weekend. They’ll probably eat a lot and talk even more, and Jess will bring ridiculous party hats and talk everyone into wearing one, and Snap will pull out some obscure board game for them to play, and Rey will wipe the floor with them all.

To be honest, Finn’s pretty excited about it.

“Oh shit,” Karé says suddenly. “Rey, BB’s chewing on your controller cords.”

There’s a frantic rush as Rey and Poe lunge to stop the cat. Rey tucks her game system safely into the canvas bag she stores it in, and Poe pulls out a laser pointer to distract BB-8. Once the cat’s thoroughly tired out, she curls up on the pile of blankets that Karé’s been using to sleep on the couch. Rey gets out her phone and pulls up the menu of a pizza place nearby. Finn sits on the floor beside BB-8, stroking her gently as her eyes drift shut.

Things are going pretty good for him, he muses. He’s got an incredible boyfriend and some awesome new friends too. Not to mention, Jess used her connections to hook him up with a job in a bakery, and now he’s going back to school for a degree in baking and pastry. Finn might not even be here without this crazy orange fluffball. Who could have guessed?

“Well,” Poe says, sitting down next to Finn and throwing an arm over his shoulder. “I just talked to Snap. He’ll pick up the pizza on his way over. We’ve still got some time, so Rey suggested we walk down to the park. Whaddya think?”

“Sure,” Finn agrees, and leans over to kiss Poe just because he can. Poe kisses him back, soft and open, and they don’t break apart until Karé starts heckling them to get a room.

Before they leave the house, Poe makes a playful show of checking that all the windows are closed. With a laugh, Finn takes him by the hand and pulls him out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> I read Before the Awakening last summer and really enjoyed it, and was determined to include Karé in this somehow, but it’s been a year, so if she’s totally OOC then I’m sorry. Also, I know very little about waiting tables, culinary/baking, business, auto-shops, plants, planes/piloting, the military, etc, so if something I’ve written makes no sense to a more informed reader, please don’t hesitate to let me know. Thanks for reading!


End file.
